


While We're Waiting For The Sky To Fall

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Swendson - Katie Chandler series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:11:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katie and Ethan clean up some mess; Owen shorts out the power to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While We're Waiting For The Sky To Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story before I'd read the second book, so it doesn't quite fit with the canon. But, well, it's written, and there's precious little for the fandom on the internet, so here it is.

Our first, or second, or third date, depending on how you looked at it, was at a little Italian place somewhere on Broadway, with red awnings over the windows and soft yellow lights. I consulted with Gemma before I went out, but only to ask if I had any tags showing, and wore low heels so I could at least walk elegantly into the restaurant.

Ethan was already there when I arrived; he stood up and pulled my chair out, and gave me a big grin as I sat down. "I took the liberty of ordering wine," he said. "I figured after the week we'd had…"

I laughed, and took a sip. "Cheers."

The waiter came, and I ordered bruschetta without worrying about getting basil leaves in my teeth, and for my main course I ordered spaghetti without worrying about getting tomato sauce on my dress. But it only really dawned on me when I threw caution to the winds and went for an ice-cream sundae as dessert. "It's refreshing, going out with someone who already knows my deepest darkest secret."

Ethan laughed. "For me, too."

"It's only been your deepest darkest secret for a week," I said, mock-disapprovingly, and offered him a bite of the sundae; he took the glace cherry off the top and ate it before I could stop him. "Wait until you've been doing it a while."

"It's not just the job," he said, "though I'm glad to have it, of course. It's good to be with someone who already knows I'm crazy."

I paused, and the ice-cream chilled my teeth. "You're not crazy. Neither of us are." I motioned to the window. "The world out there really does look how we see it."

"Maybe, maybe not." He looked suddenly serious, and I remembered I'd once described him as usually the smartest person in the room; even here, I could see the intelligence lurking in his face. I took a deep breath; the wine was having its effect, making me aware of the golden quality of the light, the intimate quality of the conversation. "I'm not… well, I'm not as crazy as I thought I was." He spread his hands. "Hell. If we're doing this, Katie, I had a couple of episodes in college when I saw one fairy too many. It had been coming a long time, and part of that time I was in upstate New York, where you don't see so much... stuff. I mean... part of it's what we see. But part of it isn't."

I didn't say anything. I was thinking about what I'd said before Ethan was tested; he was coming close to a breakdown, I'd said, blithely, and Rod had made cappuccino cups dance across the cloth.

He leaned forwards and clasped his hands on the table. His coffee was sitting forgotten in front of him, and reaching out, he picked up the stirrer and used it to gesture with. "So, there are three kinds of people, right? People like us…"

"Humans," I corrected. "I'm not sure how this works for people like Ari and Trix."

"Okay, humans like the two of us, who are very rare; then there are humans like my family and friends and your family and friends, who can't see what's going on; then there are people like Owen and Merlin."

"Humans," I said again. "Owen and Merlin, right, who are… well, Owen and Merlin."

"Right." He smiled. "But how many people are there who have issues that aren't explained away by magic? That's the point – people like you and me are very rare. And I was feeling a little strange even before I moved to the city."

I reached out and put a hand on his arm, and privately resolved to have MSI establish some better method for testing its verifier candidates; something without that cruelty.

Ethan was still smiling at me. "Katie, thank you. Thank you for bringing me somewhere I can begin again."

"I didn't do anything," I said, honestly.

"You believed me." He sighed. "And it's such a cliché, but now I'm among people who understand me better, maybe." He made an expansive gesture. "Maybe, maybe."

"Don't forget I also get you up at the crack of dawn and then almost get you killed," I said, softly.

Ethan laughed, gently. "I wasn't almost killed! No one was almost killed. No one except..."

The waiter, looking clearly impatient, chose that moment to bring the bill without being asked; we took the hint, tipped generously and set out into the sparkling city night. I looked up at the skyscrapers, down Broadway at the red-and-white smokestacks, at the light playing across Ethan's face.

"I wonder," he said, "do magic-users suffer the same way we do? Do they get ill, do they wake up feeling crazy?"

Somewhere, sirens were wailing; I was suddenly feeling cold.

"Let's go home," I said, and we walked uptown, my heels clacking pleasantly on the sidewalk, the stars invisible in the clouds above the city.

*

Our second, or fourth or fifth – I'd settled on second – date was scheduled for the Friday after. Ethan was meeting me downstairs at five thirty; I was putting my last note in the margin of a contract, when suddenly, energy crackled through the air. Sparks flew off my fingertips, crackled, burst into tiny red fireballs, made sonic booms. I was running down the stairs when Ethan flew through the door and joined me, and Sam was following, moving fast for someone made from stone, and we crashed through the door of R&amp;D all together just as the lights went out.

"Shit," Ethan said, clearly. For a moment, it was pitch-black, and then something whirred into life: emergency lighting of some sort, a dim eerie green that illuminated Ethan and Sam as shadowy forms, and a dark shape on the floor in the middle of the room.

"Shit," I said.

Owen was dead weight. I got on the floor beside him, saying hysterically to Ethan, "First step in any disaster round here, pick Owen up and make sure he's still breathing" – but he _was_ still breathing. The relief gave me enough strength to turn him over, and then I froze. His eyes were open, staring at nothing, bright in the absolute pallor of his face. "Owen," I said, "wake up. Owen. Owen!"

Ethan had gone to fetch help; I could hear him, and Sam, shouting a level above me. "Owen," I said again, helplessly, and then the air froze into glass. For a moment, I was vitrified in space and time, Owen still half on my lap, and then everything shattered into brightness, went dark again.

When I could see again, Merlin was standing in the door, illuminated by ghostly light. For a moment, I thought it was some sort of spell, then realised it was an ordinary kerosene lamp. He laid it down beside his feet. Behind him, Ethan came in, carrying a second one.

Merlin said, not looking at me: "I'm sorry."

Owen's head jerked backwards, then he was awake, shaking horribly, and suddenly, I remembered the last time I'd seen him like this. Very slowly, he sat up, still leaning on me, and I noticed that there was blood on his hands, making dark plum bruises beneath his fingernails.

"Step two," Ethan said, in a strange voice. He was standing at the window. "For disaster management at MSI Inc. Call City Hall and apologise."

"What?" I said stupidly, still conscious of the weight of Owen's body, the catches in his breathing.

"The power's out on the entire block," Ethan said, still with his face pressed to the glass. "Possibly the whole city, I can't see."

"What," Owen said, and he was looking at Merlin.

Merlin said, softly, "It worked."

But I'd figured it out. "Don't you people have any concept of safety precautions?" I said, to fill the silence, and then, all at once, I was truly, honestly angry. "You did this" – I waved at the room – "just like that, just like that without telling anyone, and all you can say is that it worked?"

With surprising grace for someone so old, Merlin came to sit on the floor with me, helping me support Owen. "I sincerely apologise," he said, softly. "I'm an old man, and I get excited about magic."

"What did you do?" Ethan asked. I remembered that he hadn't even had the benefit of the few months' experience that I'd had; he only ever came to the building when disasters happened. Maybe that accounted for his calm; I wasn't sure how I was keeping it together, myself.

"You used his power, didn't you," I said, and Merlin nodded.

"I wanted to know if Idris' spells of control would allow me access."

"The answer's yes, I take it," Ethan said, coming to join us on the floor. We would have made a strange tableau to any passing stranger, four people sitting on the hard floor in a room filled with furniture.

"Yes," Owen said, very softly.

Merlin nodded. "Yes. The energy that was released… it was familiar. But I believe there is a proverb in this time, to the effect of knowing one's limits." He took hold of Owen's bloodstained hands, and he didn't resist. "I am sorry. I know my own, but not, of course, Owen's; when I drained his power, the price was as you can see."

I thought, inanely, that someone should get Owen a tissue.

Ethan smiled, still with that strangeness in his face. "Is there a moral to this story?"

"Yes." Merlin got up, slowly, leaned down and kissed Owen on the forehead. It was an odd, almost courtly gesture, and it reminded me all at once how old Merlin was, how distant. "We should take better care of our own."

Ethan nodded. "I'll go with that. I'm going to call City Hall, spin them a story with a lot of legalese, get some people in doing illusions to clean up the mess."

"Katie, would you," Merlin began, and I nodded.

"I'll take Owen home."

*

"Sorry about your date," Owen said, hours later. He was lying on his couch, arms folded under his head. I'd got him to lie flat, but it was obvious he was wide awake, eyes bright; I remembered feeling like that in college, sometimes, having gone through exhaustion and out the other side.

I smiled, wryly. "Dates are about spending time together, right? Well, Ethan and I spent plenty of time together tonight."

"Nevertheless, I am sorry." He looked it. I sat down on the edge of the couch next to him, and sighed a little with tiredness. I'd had to get him home by carpet, but luckily, the power had just been coming back on as we arrived. I'd got him something warm to drink and some painkillers, and only now was I realising that I'd never actually been in his apartment before. On the whole, it looked like I might have expected: cosy, which was really another way of saying messy, but I approved of the mess. There were books on every surface, large leather-bound tomes like the ones in his office, but also novels and poetry, books on science and politics, a couple of trashy thrillers here and there. I recognised the Tom Clancy book he'd got from the bookbinder, and smiled when I noticed the bookmark in it. "It's terrible," Owen said, blushing as he followed my gaze, "but I can't stop reading it."

"That's what my dad said." I tried to lean back a little, and was struck all at once by the normality of it all – this ordinary city apartment, showing every sign of being inhabited by a perfectly ordinary man. "Why do you do it, Owen?" I asked, before I could stop myself, and then privately regretted it; it wasn't my business, and I didn't want to provoke another blush. It wasn't my job to open him up; he wasn't my mystery.

"Is that, why do I occasionally attempt to destroy myself, the whole world and everything in it?"

His voice was sharp. I said, "That's not what I was asking."

"Why not? It's what Rod will ask me, when he sees me next."

"Owen," I said, and stopped.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he wasn't blushing, but he was staring down at the Clancy novel as though it held some arcane truth. "I'm sorry, Katie, that was uncalled for. I did what I did tonight because I had a frightening thought, about Idris' initial spell."

"I thought you said he'd ironed out the wrinkles, so the flawed version of the spell wasn't going to be used any more."

"From that perspective, yes. I said that a spell that could control someone's will, but not their memory or even their handwriting – if you recall, even if Jake could force me to write a message on the board, it was in his handwriting, not mine – would be useless. But what if what was needed wasn't my will, or my handwriting, but" – he waved a hand – "the raw material of my ability. Could another person use me in that way?"

"And Merlin did," I supplied. "I get it, I think. But..." I paused. "Isn't it horrible, allowing yourself to be used?"

"Yes," he said, simply. "It is. But in some ways, that is the nature of the beast. I don't expect you're interested in all this deep, theory of magic stuff – it's archaic, and tedious even to me, sometimes – but if you look, there's a theme. Nothing comes from nothing. Magic comes from power, which comes from sacrifice. I'm not sure I'm still making any sense."

"You are," I said, but he did look tired; his eyes weren't quite in focus, and I was thinking, all at once, of seeing him in the amusement park on the Jersey Shore, shattered and held together by some bright inner light. "I can just leave you be for a while, if you would like? But I told Ethan I would stay until you were either asleep or strong enough to throw me out."

He smiled. "Speaking of sacrifice, Katie, thank you. I'm not sure this qualifies as necessary overtime."

"It's okay," I said, and meant it.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I reached out for the Clancy novel, and balanced it on my lap. After I'd read the first ten pages, Owen's breathing was getting slower and deeper. He opened his eyes when I set the book down, but he was drifting, now, and I didn't think it was worthwhile telling him to go to bed. I found a blanket on the back of an armchair and left it by him.

I was finding my purse and getting ready to slip out quietly when he raised his head. "Katie?"

"What is it?"

Still that strange half-smile. "You look after people very well. Who looks after you?"

*

When I got home, Marcia wasn't there. '"She's out with Jeff," Gemma said, significantly. "Jeff, who is _so_ charming and wonderful and sexy and gorgeous and funny and kind, apparently. And you, too, with your surprisingly-cute-for-a-lawyer Ethan!"

"Mmm," I said, deducing from this that her relationship with Phillip The Frog Guy wasn't going all that well.

She was staring at me curiously. "Speaking of Ethan, weren't you supposed to be on a date tonight?"

So much for sneaking in unnoticed. "I was," I said carefully. "But there was an emergency at work, and I stayed to help and by the time I got out, it was too late. I just had to come home."

"That's too bad." But she was still looking curious. "What kind of emergency?"

I took a deep breath. "A guy I work with was... kind of nearly electrocuted? It was pretty bad, so I volunteered to help him get home."

"You're too nice for your own good" – but she was smiling, annd I allowed myself a private sigh of relief. "Want something to drink? I was just wondering if I could justify mixing a margarita just for myself."

"Sounds good." I took my shoes off and listened to her rattling around the kitchen, looking for triple sec and sugar. I let my heels drop anywhere and sat down with a thump on the couch; suddenly, I was exhausted.

"Katie, you look awful." Gemma, holding a cocktail glass in each hand, looked honestly concerned, and I tried to remember the last time I'd seen myself in a mirror. Probably before I left for work in the morning, which was, God, more than twelve hours ago.

"I'm fine," I said, unconvincingly, and reached for my drink.

She let me have it, but with the same expression on her face. "Really, you should go to bed."

"No," I said, firmly; I was tired, but I wanted to be falling-over-exhausted before the time I went to bed – enough for me not to lie awake and see that moment's image of Owen's body on the floor.

"Well, all right," she said, still doubtfully, "but we're not going out again tonight. We're going to sit and watch _Thelma &amp; Louise_. No, we're not, it's too depressing. We're going to watch _Legally Blonde_. Oh, and we're going to eat all the ice-cream that got tragically melted in the power cut."

"Freezers are supposed to stay cold for hours after the power's been turned off," I pointed out, but she waved an impatient hand.

"Shut up, Katie, and get some spoons."

I shut up and got the spoons, and settled back down. Gemma dropped onto the couch next to me and we watched it mostly in silence, with the occasional giggle, and yawn as the alcohol hit.

"Funny," Gemma said, stretching as the credits rolled. "That guy you work with, getting electrocuted. Was he okay?"

"After a while," I said. "He was kind of in shock at first. Shit, sorry, no pun intended."

She grinned. "In shock, shut up. Glad he was okay. But with the power cut happening tonight as well? Weird shit happens in this town."

"Weird," I echoed, and poured myself another drink.

*

Rod appeared a couple of days afterwards, coming into my office without knocking and perching himself on the edge of my desk.

"You're going to smudge the ink on that one," I complained, "the client insists on real quill pens for some reason, God knows why. Where the hell have you been, anyway?"

"I have been," he announced, grandly, "on vacation. Well, staycation, I sat at home and watched bad movies for three days. It was great."

"Never use that word again," I muttered.

"Staycation? The New York Times uses it, it's cool."

I ignored that. "You pick the worst times to be away. Didn't you hear what happened?"

"Owen sent me a message, it wasn't very coherent but I think I got the gist. I'd have run in to help, but it seems to me that you and Ethan got everything under control." He gave me a smile, which I couldn't help but return; the man was a genius for flattery.

"Wait, Owen sent you a message? How?" I was suspicious; Owen was under strict instructions not to do any magic for a while, both for his own sake and other people's. It would be like him, I thought darkly, him and his streak of self-sacrifice a mile wide, to plunge back in regardless.

"By email." Rod grinned. "Relax. Now come with me, I've got something to show you." He stood up and marched out of my office without another word; I had to run to keep up. "Seems your Ethan's been busy."

"First of all, he's not my Ethan, and second... what's that?"

"Read," he said, waving an imperious hand. I settled myself in front of the large printed document on the wall of the entrance hall, which hadn't been there in the morning, and read:

_ **For The Health, Safety and Well-Being of the Employees of Magic, Spells &amp; Illusions, Incorporated, Some Guidelines:** _

 

**1\. Interpretation.** For the purposes of these Guidelines, "magic" shall be deemed to include all spells, charms, illusions and sleight of hand whatosever and whenever; "health" shall include both physical and mental integrity and wellbeing, and "employees" shall include all individuals, human and non-human, who undertake activitiy paid or unpaid that in some capacity howsoever minor in the interests of Magic, Spells, &amp; Illusions Incorporated ("MSI Inc").

**2\. Verifiers.** For the purposes of the health and continued productivity of verifiers, otherwise "immunes", it shall be deemed unsafe and irresponsible for magic-users to engage in any testing activity that is to the detriment of the verifier or potential verifier, up to and including the perambulation of inanimate objects.

 

**3\. Experimentation, Magical.** No employee shall undertake magical experimentation for whatever noble purpose in the absence of a verifier or otherwise person of at least minimal sense and restraint.

(a) Without prejudice to the generality of the preceding clause, it shall be deemed to apply most particularly and emphatically to Owen Palmer.

(b) Without prejudice to clause 3(a), clause 3 shall be deemed to apply most particularly and emphatically to the indiividual currently legally known as Ambrose Mervyn, otherwise Merlin, Myrddin Emrys, etc.

**4\. Boiling liquid.** No cup, mug, or other receptacle containing a liquid at more than fifty degrees Celsius shall be made to instantly materialise without the protection of a protective insulating cover.

**5\. Not being stupid.** No employee shall be more stupid than they can reasonably help; for the purposes of this clause "stupid" shall have the broadest possible construction available to a reasonable native speaker of the English language.

**6\. Variation.** These Guidelines shall be subject to variation and alteration to circumstances; no consultation process is deemed necessary.

 

At the bottom of the stairs, Ethan grinned at me, turned and walked out the door.

Rod said, "What..."

"I think it's a contract you ought to sign," I said, and went back to my desk.

*

Our third date took a while to get started; someone asked Owen to explain something about magical theory when he was in reach of a marker pen and his favourite whiteboard, and it took a while before we could leave the building. When asked what I wanted to do, I'd said, "Dinner and a movie" – and Ethan had taken me at my word. We were walking uptown beneath a smoggy, starry sky.  
.  
Ethan said, "Things won't change."

There was no one near us on the sidewalk. "There's that whole fighting-a-battle-against-evil thing," I said, cautiously. "That certainly won't, at least not for a good long while."

"That's what I mean," he said, quietly. "Owen will do what he does. City Hall will get pissed when he does what he does. People like me will still think they're going crazy."

"But," I prompted, when it looked like he wasn't going to say anything else.

"There isn't one." He sighed. "Sorry, that's pessimistic. I mean, you and I can run around trying to effect change, trying to bring in safety regulations and marketing policies and whatever – but they've been doing this a long time without us. I think it's foolish to think we can make instant changes when the passage of hundreds of years hasn't done it."

"Do you think I'm naïve?" I said, stung. "I didn't think I was, like, a one-woman revolution, or whatever."

"Sorry," he said again. "I didn't mean..."

"I know you didn't," I said, softening again. "I guess… I didn't want to be invested in this. I wanted to be a corporate drone."

"I wanted to be a corporate attorney," he said gently. "No one said life was going to turn out as planned."

"I wonder what Owen wanted to be, when he was young," I said thoughtfully.

"I doubt he had much choice in the matter." Ethan grinned suddenly. "I don't know what Merlin wanted to do when he was a child, but somehow I don't think appearing in Broadway musicals figured anywhere."

I laughed at that, and breathed in deeply as the sounds of the traffic broke through into my thoughts. "I didn't really want to be a corporate drone."

"I know," he said, gently.

"I wanted to run away to the big city and have adventures and do amazing things."

"Me, too," he said. He kissed me, briefly, and I followed his gaze up the jewelled skyscrapers, up to the heavy, brooding sky. "I was wrong," he said after a moment.

"Mmm?" I said, a little dizzy as I looked up. "What about?"

"Some things have changed," he said, and smilled, and kissed me again. "For the better."

I smiled back, and thought I saw a flash of wings against the skyline, felt a distant, pleasant crackle. "Don't turn out the lights," I said, to no one in particular, and Ethan took my hand.


End file.
